


Three Cataclysms

by wildenessat221b



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, They're all weird poetry students, vague description of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 23:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10449927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildenessat221b/pseuds/wildenessat221b
Summary: Viktor flits between lectures and between people, until he finds an incentive to stay in one place.





	

It was custom to get beaten up in the university, that's just the way things worked.  
   
You want to walk out with notes, my dear? That'll be three bruises and a split lip.

The hierarchy was determined that way; the nice ones were the ones with purple staining their skin, the bad ones were the pretty ones with bodies like fresh moulding clay. 

Viktor was somewhere in between, for all intents and purposes. He was undeniably pretty, with a rich cloak of silky, platinum hair and pale eyes that could extinguish roaring fire. He moved fluidly, on feet that seemed rarely to touch the floor, slipping between classes and flitting between people. He was known to all but kept his head down... caught the eye of passers by but didn't keep it. 

He was a fleeting vision, and kept his bruises at a calculated and careful minimum. 

Collecting notes, collating knowledge, tip-toeing carefully through the heart and soul of the place. 

The pretty thugs couldn't touch him - he never stayed still for long enough. The nice ones, the ones who had chosen their passions and spoke loudly and proudly about them stayed in a different world to him. 

They stood in bars, holding up their t-shirts, showing off one injury or another. Flaunting their scratches, making a spectacle of their pain, shouting, 'For the cause, Henry! For the pursuit of excellence!'

Viktor, across town and alone, sat in his empty apartment, with the clean Scandinavian furniture and shelves lined with Russian epics. He touched red areas on his cheekbone, or grey on his neck from a young pretty boy who hadn't learned the ropes yet. 

And he envied the others somehow, for their hurt and what they could do with it. 

He was drifting... waiting. 

***

He made notes on astronomy, sat invisibly on the front row behind a curtain of hair, and left ten minutes before the end. 

He made notes on German verb conjugation, sat invisibly on the front row behind a curtain of hair, and left ten minutes before the end. 

He made notes on social economics, sat invisibly on the front row behind a curtain of hair, and left ten minutes before the end.

He walked down the hall, and was shoved into a wall for his trouble. He was held there, arm twisted up between his shoulder blades until the blonde with the cupid's-bow lips met his impassive eyes and realised that he wasn't the type he was looking for.

He went home, he ate a bowl of something warm and instant and then, he lay in a dark and empty room until swirling dreams coloured his eyelids. 

He woke up, and did the bare bones of it again, details the only things changed.

Serbian vocabulary, biochemistry, musical notation.

An ignorant knee to the stomach, a quick dismissal. 

Something warm and instant. 

Darkness and swirling dreams. 

***

Viktor was cornered one day, by a poetry student with flames in his eyes. 

He spoke at him rather than to him, taking on the air of a caffeinated lecturer who was sure - just sure - that he could inject something worthwhile into a class of vacant and uncaring youths. He stood inches from his face, demanding attention and demanding a reaction. 

Rapid French, with a Swiss inflection was fired his way in sharp bullets, and he recoiled from the pellets of spit that landed on his nose. 

'Listen, listen, listen... Us, all of us, we think you're like us. We can see it somehow, we can feel it. We feel things other people don't, about places and about people, and we all feel it. We see you trying to hide, we see you trying to be a little bit here, a little bit there, spreading yourself out so that you're pulled as thin as you can manage. You're trying to be an abstraction, something not quite real. Be careful with that. We think it would be useful for you, to join us, just for a bit. To make your words abstract so that you can leave the rest of yourself concrete. If you keep leaving bits of yourself everywhere, there'll be nothing left eventually.'

He shoved a paper flier into Viktor's chest, then placed a contradictory tender hand on his shoulder. 

'You have the heart of a poet, I'm sure of it.'

He turned away briskly, striding on long legs towards the pair of double doors. 

Viktor blinked after him, then shook his head. 

He let the fist holding the scrunched up flier hover over a bin on the courtyard, free corners fluttering in the wind. 

Then, he shoved it into his jacket pocket and made for home.

Something warm and instant. 

Darkness and swirling dreams. 

***

He stayed away for a week, continuing on his familiar path of a little science here, art there, a smattering of language for good measure. 

But curiosity was clawing at him, just a little, and he wondered what it was like to be passionate like the Swiss man, and what it was like to be able to make your bruises into something translatable and beautiful. 

He found himself outside the door of the third floor poetry classroom, tapping his foot and wondering. Then he found himself in the poetry classroom, hiding behind his hair as a security measure and scribbling. 

It was just another lecture, more words that he'd pack onto a shelf and try to absorb later. It wasn't enormously well populated, the Swiss boy, who the lecturer addressed as "Chris," making the majority of the contributions to the class. He had a booming presence, and could seemingly dredge meaning from anything. 

'There's beauty in the walls, beauty in the floors, beauty in noise, beauty in the silence. You can describe anything as beautiful and it becomes true - no one can tell you that your perception of beauty is wrong!'

Viktor kept his head down and wrote absently, writing down every word in the form it was spoken. He knew that Chris' babbled, ever changing thoughts would make little sense when he read them back, but he felt the need to fold into something lest he become the subject of hasty poetry.

As usual, he slipped out of the door ten minutes before the end and wandered around the building until the class name on a door grabbed his attention. 

Later that day, he rounded the corner and was met with the sight of Chris on the floor with blood dripping from his nose and a broad boy standing above him shaking out his reddened knuckles. Chris had his head thrown back in laughter, and had an expression of pure jubilation on his face. 

'For the art, you fools!' he was gasping delightedly, in clumsy English, 'You're just giving me ammunition!'

The boy looked a little disturbed, and who Viktor assumed was a friend signalled with his head towards the door. They scampered away wordlessly like spooked deer. Chris only laughed harder. 

Viktor approached him haltingly, letting his toes linger along the polished floor. 

He held out a hand to Chris, whose laughter trailed off and eyes widened. 

He took the hand firmly, and grinned as Viktor hauled him up. 

'You'll be coming back, then?'

Viktor snatched his hand away, and shoved it into his pocket. 

'I... Don't know.'

He turned away, and Chris laughed once more, barking and smug in quality.

'Association... The first sign of madness!'

Viktor didn't want to think about what he meant.

***

He did go back, so perhaps he was mad. 

He kept returning, and kept associating, swapping out a few of his dotted, miscellaneous lectures for the poetry class on the third floor. He wasn't even quite sure why; the lectures weren't all that special, and he still didn't feel like a poet. Couldn't pull something from nothing like his peers seemed to be able to. 

But the atmosphere was something special; there was an electric buzzing in the air. There was Chris with his fast moving hands, and Georgi with his low, intense lines, and Mila's loud laugh and nonsense comments. And even the others, the silent ones with their eyes locked onto the swirling ink marking their paper. They were spilling their souls out, Viktor could see it. 

Despite the fact that he hadn't written a word of poetry himself yet, he was glad to be in the class. 

Even when a gaggle of pretty thugs started gathering outside the door and watching him as he left the room, ten minutes early turning to nine, then eight, then seven. 

***

He considered himself a poetry student after he stopped being invisible. 

A tall, black haired man with sultry green eyes dragged him into the bathroom by his mane of hair, shoved his head into the sink and cut it off. 

He was spooked to say the least when Viktor stood and thanked him with a smile. 

'Ammunition, my dear,' he said in Russian he knew the other wouldn't  understand. The poor young thug blinked. 

Viktor turned up to class sporting a horrendous, messy bowl cut and spent a good portion of the lecture with his head up. 

He wrote only what he deemed necessary, and let the rest hang in the air. 

That night, he made for the barber's and had them cut it even shorter, just one side long enough to obscure the left eye. 

He went home, made something home cooked and nutritious, and allowed himself to breathe.

He slept with the lights on. 

***

A new student arrived at the class. He scampered in a couple of minutes late with flushed cheeks, just as Georgi was beginning to regale a sonnet about his most recent lost love. He was relatively small, or smaller than Viktor, and hunched over himself, seemingly hiding behind a pair of glasses perched on his nose. 

He sat in the space next to Viktor, and didn't look at him, instead peering into his notebook like the secrets of the universe hid between the empty pages. 

For some reason or another, Viktor couldn't look away. 

He didn't write for the whole lecture, as the boy beside him rolled his pen along fluidly like a swirling dance. He squinted when he looked up, which he did when anyone spoke; endearing politeness, at the expense of only himself. His bottom lip was nibbled from occasions when a passing thought would shine a little brighter than the rest, and that too would go into the notebook. But only if nobody was talking. His eyes were deep, and gave the impression that you could fall in if you got too close.

Viktor didn't realise he'd noticed all of that until night fell, and he felt the relentless urge to write poetry. These observations were all his mind's eyes could see, and even after weeks of lectures, he had no idea how to make an abstraction of them. 

Eventually, he threw his notebook across the room. 

***

Viktor, with his short hair that spoke of 'contribution to the cause,' in Chris' words, was invited to the bar where they whiled away their evenings for the first time. 

He, Chris, Georgi, Mila, and a couple of the quieter ones that Viktor (ashamedly) still didn't know the names of occupied a table tucked into the corner. Viktor drew patterns into the condensation of his glass with his forefinger, while Chris and Georgi loudly discussed this and that. As seemed to be the way with them, they didn't stop. Went from love to death, from politics to the meaning of it all without pausing for breath. Viktor just watched, fingers curled under his chin. Mila was talking to the others in a lower voice, eyes hooded in a way that suggested it was a serious, closed conversation. 

Viktor sighed, and looked at his watch. It wasn't late, but he reasoned that he wouldn't be missed. He stood to leave, chair legs scraping along the floor when the door burst open. 

As though carried in by the wind, the new boy, the one who'd sat beside him at the lecture, careened in. He looked flustered, with a red tint to his cheeks, and was gasping for air from underneath his padded coat. 

'Sorry I'm... God,' he gasped, waving a hand in the air and waiting for his heart to catch up,  
'Sorry I'm late.'

Chris stopped babbling and gesticulating and beamed at him, 'Not at all! Adds a touch of drama, I fully approve.'

Viktor looked him up and down; took in the deepness of his eyes, the curve of his lips, how soft he looked bundled into that big coat. He watched as he pulled out a chair, slowly and haltingly, as though still not sure if he was allowed to be there, and sat down. 

Viktor found himself sitting down too. 

He cast the boy, who was squirming in his seat a little, a look out of the corner of his eye. He opened his mouth, then closed it again like a goldfish. Open, close. Open, close. Then finally, 'Hi.'

The boy did a double take, as though he couldn't quite believe he was being addressed, then smiled a shy smile.

'Hi. You're Viktor aren't you? Chris gave me a quick profile of everyone. You're "the flaky one with silver hair."'

Viktor laughed, 'I am. Do I live up to my profile?'

'I mean... You've certainly got silver hair. I don't know if you're flaky, I can't really make that judgement,' he stopped, then started flapping his hands in the air with the look of a scared rabbit in his eyes, 'I'm sure you're not, of course. I mean, you might be, but I'm sure you're not. I-'

He was cut off by Viktor's laugh. 

'I think that you might be quite nervous,' he said, raising his eyebrows. 

Yuri sighed shakily, 'I think that you might be right.'

'There's no need,' Viktor said gently, 'We don't bite. I didn't get your name.'

'Yuri. It's Yuri.' 

'Why don't I buy you a drink, Yuri?'

He shook his head vigorously, 'I'll buy my own drink. Thanks. I'll um... Be back. Soon.' he stood jerkily, his chair toppling precariously on two legs, then made for the bar. 

He was back after a moment, something pink and toxic looking in his hand. He was silent again, and Viktor watched as he steadily but quickly drank it down. It was gone soon, and he went back, returning with another fluorescent pink thing. Then another. A blue for variety. Another pink. 

It was like art, to watch him melt into his seat a little more with every drink. To see his tight expression turn loose, and his smile become slowly more languid. 

He giggled, then stood on slightly wobbly legs. He bent down to Viktor's ear. 

'I'm not nervous anymore,' then he took his hand and dragged him to the centre of the dance floor. 

Viktor was too shocked to do anything but follow. 

And then they were dancing, all long legs and messy movements. There was grace in Yuri's stumbling, and he was exquisite and clinging to Viktor's shoulders. He emitted light and warmth, pressing their chests together and swirling. They were like a clumsy whirlwind, veering off in unpredictable directions. They were fast, and unstoppable. 

And then they did stop, in the centre of the room, Yuri staring up at Viktor with raw, unguarded eyes that Viktor had never seen on anyone before. 

And that was when the floodgates opened. 

He got home and he wrote. He wrote and wrote and wrote, spilling himself onto the page in verse, sonnets and haikus and free verse masterpieces. Yuri had unlocked something and kept the key. 

He kept the light on, and didn't dream in swirls anymore, but in the feeling of skin and skin repeated again, and again and again. 

***

Yuri was already at the lecture the next morning, looking worse for wear. His eyes widened when he was Viktor. 

'I'm so sorry about last night. I remember you offering to but me a drink and then... Not much else. Which is very worrying indeed.'

Viktor let out a breathy laugh, 'Don't worry about it. Just,' he slipped into his chair, 'Would you like to go for coffee?'

Yuri blinked.

'I... Yes please.'

Viktor smiled. 

'Good.'

***

They did go for coffee, a few days later. Viktor bought both, which Yuri protested, and then they talked.

Slowly at first, a conversation of trickles, but then Viktor asked Yuri what his passion was, and the conversation got interesting. 

He said that it was everything

Every blade of grass, every patch of sky, every stone, every person. Every smile, every laugh, and every word. That's why he took poetry, he said. It was a way of looking at the world in a different way. Seeing the things he loved so much and putting them into different terms, different view points. 

He said all this with bright eyes, turned to the sky. 

'But what about you? What's your passion.'

Viktor laughed softly, with a small sigh, 'I'm still working that one out.'

'Getting anywhere?'

'Somewhere.'

He smiled at Yuri, then glanced down at his watch.

'I've got a lecture soon. But considering your passion is everything... We've still got some ground to cover. Would you like to go out again some time?'

Yuri smiled shyly down at his fingers, wrapped carefully around each other on the table. 

'I would. A lot.'

***

They drank a lot of coffee, over the next few weeks, and covered a lot of topics. Wonderfully, Yuri took on a habit of grasping Viktor's hand in excitement when the conversation turned to something he was really interested in. 

Words poured out of his mouth, and Viktor reciprocated, finding himself getting lost in topics he hadn't realised he loved. 

They went back to Viktor's flat for the first time, and Viktor cooked while Yuri leafed through his books. 

They ate with their eyes locked, and arranged to do the same the next week instead of meeting at the coffee shop. There was something different about it; something warmer, more intimate. 

The next week, Yuri arrived with a splatter of purple on his cheek. Viktor sighed sadly, and gathered him into his arms. 

'They've realised you've got a soul then?'

Yuri hummed and nodded against Viktor's chest. 

He pulled away, and stroked a gentle thumb over his cheekbone. Yuri smiled softly into the touch. He smiled even more when Viktor pressed his lips into the area just below the bruise. He kissed gently, then let his lips wander down, down, further. Then their lips were locked together, and Yuri was kissing Viktor and Viktor was kissing Yuri, and they were on fire and electric and somehow home. 

Sonnets were being spun in Viktor's brain again, and he couldn't stop them. They were like a spool of wool unravelling, couldn't be caught, couldn't be stopped. 

That's when he realised Chris was wrong. He didn't have the heart of a poet, not until he was pressed against Yuri in some way or another. He needed two hearts to be beating in time in order to become unhinged. 

***

'Chris was wrong. Poetry isn't my passion. I still don't know what is. Other than you.'

He was speaking to Yuri, lying beside him on the apartment floor with the lights off. 

'I've been thinking about that. I don't think I am your passion...' 

Viktor opened his mouth to protest, but Yuri stopped him. 

'I think you love me, but I don't think I'm your passion.'

He stopped and shuffled closer to Viktor.

'You said that you used to flit between classes. I don't think that's being flaky. I think that means that your passion is learning.'

Viktor blinked up at the ceiling, and Yuri grasped his hand. 

'Think about it. You met me and the first thing you wanted to do was learn everything about me. About what makes me tick. You try to absorb everything from everywhere, all the time, and I think that's why you struggled with poetry. You want to know it, not twist it into something vague and romantic.'

Viktor let out a breath. 

'Okay... What do I do with that then?'

'Why don't you teach?'

And that was the final piece of the puzzle.

***

Yuri wrote their wedding vows, because he was good with words. 

Viktor taught young children, because they just want to learn everything, picking up knowledge off the ground and stuffing it into their little pockets. 

They bought a dog, and Yuri published an anthology that flew off the shelves because of its rawness and simplicity. 

Viktor stopped trying to be a poet for the most part, but felt that there was one verse that he needed to get out. 

He stood on the dining room table, and performed it to Yuri with the vigour of a Shakespearian actor. 

'The first cataclysm,   
Was your eyes.  
The second,   
 Your mouth,   
The third,   
Your lips on mine.'

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Comments much appreciated, they really do mean the world.


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